What Else Are Friends For
by mercy-angel-09
Summary: It's a small town. Of course neighbors look out for each other.


_**A little re-write of "Rory's Dance." One of five episodes Luke doesn't appear in (though to be fair he does appear in one of those five episodes - he just doesn't have any lines). Obviously I felt that this episode needed more Luke. Though, sadly, not more cowbell. (MORE COWBELL!) Completely unbeta'd because my usual beta has recently moved and I'm going to assume this was lost in the shuffle. Any glaring mistakes are mine and mine alone. Some dialogue borrowed from the episode.**_

* * *

Two days. It had been two days since Luke had seen Lorelai and frankly he was starting to worry. It wasn't like Lorelai to avoid the diner. They hadn't had any spats and as far as he knew things at the inn weren't busy. Not that he would ever admit it in a million years, but the diner felt lonely when she wasn't around. As often as he complained about her and her antics, life would be infinitely more boring without her.

Content that Cesar could close up for the night, Luke packed a couple of bags with food, grabbed a cup of coffee to go, and headed to Lorelai's. He couldn't shake the feeling that if something was really wrong he would have heard something from Babette, so whatever was keeping Lorelai away from the diner couldn't be too bad.

The Jaguar parked behind Lorelai's car caused him to pause for a moment and try to remember where he'd seen it before. With a shrug he figured he'd just ask Lorelai, and mounted the steps to her house and knocked on the door. He heard some shuffling behind the door before it finally swung open, revealing an older woman he swore looked familiar.

"Who are you?" she demanded and Luke found himself at a loss for words.

"Mom? Who is it?" he heard Lorelai call from the living room. The face clicked in place. He'd seen her at Rory's birthday party, shortly after he arrived. Lorelai had later explained that the sour faced woman was her mother, who would never be happy about anything in Lorelai's life.

"Hey, Lorelai?" Luke called back, ignoring the way Mrs. Gilmore's face puckered.

"Luke?"

"I come bearing food and coffee."

"Let the man in, Mom!" Lorelai yelled, and Emily stepped aside.

"Thank you, Mrs. Gilmore," he said as he walked by and headed to the living room. Lorelai was propped up in a corner of the couch and by all accounts looking healthy and hale, but something wasn't right. He put the bags on the coffee table, and holding on to the coffee, cocked his head at her. "So what happened?"

"Nothing happened," she said, pulling a face. "I'm just fine."

"Uh huh," he said, holding up the cup of coffee just out of her reach. "Why haven't you grabbed this from me yet?"

"Err…"

"Lorelai…"

"I tweaked my back, but I'm fine."

"You haven't moved, you are not fine."

"It's just a little spasm."

"Okay, by using the word spasm that immediately means it's not little. I was trying to figure out why I hadn't seen you in a few days and now I know why. Can you even move?"

She scoffed. "Of course I can."

"And how long does it take for you to get up the stairs?" he asked with a pointed stare.

She stared back for a few seconds before she cracked. "Twenty minutes, okay."

"You should be in bed, Lorelai."

"I'm fine. And you brought food," she said, batting her eyes at him.

Noticing the bag of tacos already on the coffee table, he shook his head. "Looks like you've already been provided for."

"But your food is better, and you brought me coffee," she said with a brilliant smile.

He studied her for a moment before he sighed. "Fine. Fine. Do you need a plate or are you roughing it?"

"Of course she needs a plate," Emily said, giving her daughter a hard look.

"I'll get it," Luke said before handing Lorelai her coffee and heading towards the kitchen. In the relative safety of the kitchen he contemplated his next move. He didn't want to stay and have to tolerate Emily's stares all night, but he also didn't like the idea of Lorelai taking twenty minutes to climb the stairs when she wanted to go to bed. Snagging a plate from the cabinet, he took a fortifying breath and headed back to the living room.

"It's a nice gesture, Mom," Lorelai was saying as he walked in.

"It's forward is what it is," Emily snapped back.

"So I hadn't seen you around the diner in a few days," Luke interrupted as he walked over to the coffee table. "I had a hunch that all was not well on Planet Gilmore."

"And your response to this was to bring me coffee and food?" Lorelai asked.

"Yeah, well, I worry about my friends," Luke grumbled.

"We're friends?" Lorelai squealed.

Luke gave her a look and she giggled. "I figured that was obvious." He rolled his eyes as he loaded up the plate with the burgers and fries. When he handed it to her, he started up the stairs.

"And where do you think you're going?" Emily asked.

Pausing on the landing, Luke wished that the woman would leave, though to be fair he didn't even know why she was there in the first place. "I was going to draw a bath, Mrs. Gilmore. Lorelai should probably take a soak to try and loosen the muscles in her back before going to bed."

"Aw, you don't have to do that," Lorelai said. "I can do it."

"Yes, because you're going to feel up to it after it takes you twenty minutes to get up the stairs," he said with a look. "It's fine and I don't mind. I can carry you up the stairs you know."

Lorelai gave him a once over. "You hiding some impressive musculature under all that flannel?"

"Lorelai, if you aggravate that injury, it's going to bother you for the rest of your life."

"Do you speak from experience?" Emily asked, eyeing him with obvious disdain.

"Sort of," Luke sighed. "I blew out my arm in junior high by not taking care of a sprain, so I had to switch to track instead of pursuing baseball in high school."

"Whoa, how did I not know you were a jock in high school?" Lorelai asked.

"Because there was never a reason for it to come up before now," Luke answered. "Now would you like me to start a bath for you?"

At the thought of spending half an hour soaking in a warm tub of water, Lorelai let out a contented sigh. "That would be wonderful."

"Right, I'll get on that," Luke said, heading up the stairs.

Emily turned to her daughter, scandalized. "Lorelai, this is wildly inappropriate."

"It's not like he's going to be in there with me while I'm in the bath," Lorelai said before picking up a fry and sticking the whole thing in her mouth. She chewed and then swallowed before starting up again. "He'll probably leave once he has me upstairs anyway. I know that it may seem weird to you, but in a town like this it isn't weird at all for neighbors to check in on one another. Luke's just being a good neighbor, that's all."

Sitting down next to her daughter, Emily lowered her voice. "That man has feelings for you, Lorelai, and I'm fairly certain a blind man could see that. I seriously doubt that his intentions tonight were honorable."

"Oh my God," Lorelai said, shaking her head. "He brought me food and coffee because he probably assumed I was sick in bed and starving. That's just the kind of person Luke is. He's all cranky and gruff on the outside, but he's a total teddy bear on the inside."

Emily snorted, but thankfully let the subject drop allowing Lorelai to eat in peace. A few minutes later, Luke came back downstairs. "Since your tub takes forever, I figured that I would take you up to your room so you can undress and put a robe on. I can stick around until you're done, if you'd like."

"That would be nice," Lorelai said with a smile. "Also, I'm done eating so you can take me up now."

"Right," Luke said, staring at her for a moment. Finally he walked over the couch and crouched down. "Put your arms around my neck. I can get an arm under your knees and get you up, and then we'll figure out the most comfortable way to position my other arm."

"Got it," Lorelai said, looping her arms around his neck. Her stomach fluttered, since she'd never been this close to him before. He slid an arm under her knees and then stood. She gasped in pain and he immediately shifted her.

"Tell me when it stops hurting," he murmured.

"Hold on," she grunted as she shifted against him until she was finally comfortable. "Okay, this is good."

He placed his other arm to support her back and then headed up the stairs. The fluttery feeling in Lorelai's stomach intensified, though she couldn't quite figure out why. He was carrying her like she weighed nothing and like it was the most natural thing in the world. He even managed to get her up the stairs without knocking her head on the wall. Once in her room, he placed her on the bed so she was sitting on the edge.

"Can you stand on your own?" he asked.

It took a moment, but she got to her feet. She smiled at him, and he grinned back. "Okay, I'll, uh, just be downstairs if you need something."

"Hey, if you could get my mother to leave, that would be great," Lorelai said.

"I don't…why is she even here?" he asked.

"Rory has a school dance tonight, and she wanted to be here when Dean picked her up," Lorelai said as she shuffled to where her robe was hanging on her closet door. "Once she realized I was hurt, she was insisting on sticking around to take care of me. She made me a mashed banana on toast."

"That sounds disgusting."

"That's because it is."

And awkward silence fell over the room. Luke shifted uncomfortably where he stood and then spoke, "I should probably get back downstairs…"

"Well, you're probably going to have to make small talk with her until I'm done. Can you last that long?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"No. I'm so sorry."

"It's fine. I'll just clean up the food. If I'm useful, maybe she'll ignore me."

"We can only hope," Lorelai said.

Luke nodded before walking out and closing the door behind him. He had guessed that Mrs. Gilmore would be waiting for him, but he figured she'd be sitting in a chair or on the sofa, not standing like a disapproving statue on the landing.

"Well you certainly took your sweet time," she said and Luke didn't miss the double meaning.

"Just making sure that she'd be okay on her own," he grunted as he breezed past her to the living room. He started packing up the trash in one bag, and put the leftover food in the other. Lorelai and Rory weren't picky about their leftovers, so whatever he put in the fridge would probably be eaten tomorrow.

"Is this how it is with you two, you just waltz in and make yourself at home?" Emily asked as she followed him to the kitchen.

"I don't waltz in," Luke answered. He busied himself with putting the food away and then doing the few dishes sitting in the sink. Anything to keep him from having to address Mrs. Gilmore directly. "I knock, either she or Rory answers the door, and then I'm let in. End of story."

"Just what, exactly, could have you coming over here so often that you have a routine?"

Pausing in washing the dishes, Luke realized that no matter what answer he gave her, she'd be displeased by it. At least with honesty he couldn't be called a liar. "I fix stuff around the house. Broken locks, loose floorboards, squeaky hinges, leaky sinks…basically anything Lorelai needs."

"You fix things?" Emily asked incredulously. "That's it? Why doesn't she hire a handy man for that?"

"Because they charge her more than she can afford," Luke answered. "I just do it and I don't mind doing it. Lorelai is a friend and a good customer, so it's not a big deal to help her out when she needs it."

This, apparently, was enough to confuse Emily. She wandered back to the living room, leaving Luke to his own devices in the kitchen. Rather than spending more time in the company of Emily Gilmore and her trademarked condescending stare, he started to inspect the house, looking for anything that might need fixing in the near future. He noted a few lightbulbs that needed to be replaced, a window that didn't lock properly, a warped board on the deck, and finally a small amount of water damage on the ceiling under the bathroom.

Emily watched him as he scribbled notes on a pad, and tried to come up with some sort of rational explanation about what was going on between her daughter and the man currently inspecting the fireplace. She supposed Luke wasn't entirely unattractive, in that rather rugged way. The flannel and jeans and stubble were probably part of his appeal to Lorelai. Unlike the men from the social circles she grew up in, there was something wild and untamed about the diner owner.

Ugh, and his choice of profession. It was one thing to say that he was a business owner, for that was true and not exactly something to be ignored, but the type of establishment he owned…she'd be the laughingstock of the DAR if anyone else found out about it. Perhaps if he had franchises, something more substantial to his name, it wouldn't be so bad. Or if his establishment was more in line with Michelin stars and Zagat ratings. That would only be possible if he could cook more than burgers and fries, and studying the uncouth man before her she doubted it.

Emily was saved from having to make more small talk by the bathroom door opening and Lorelai shuffling out. "I actually feel better," she called. "I don't think I'm going to be trying out for the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders any time soon, but I definitely have some pep in my step."

Luke straightened and walked over to the stairs, looking up so he could see her. "Don't overdo it, Lorelai. One wrong move could make it worse and frankly I don't feel like taking you to the doctor tonight."

"Yes Dad," she said making a face, and before Luke could realize what he was doing, he grinned up at her.

With interest Emily watched the exchange, wondering at what point they would figure out the attraction between them. It was clear that Luke had feelings for Lorelai, the question now became at what point Lorelai would become aware of them. Dating Luke would be just like Lorelai, a way to stick it to everything her parents stood for.

"Do you need anything?" Luke asked, pulling Emily from her thoughts.

"No, I'm just going to get settled. I took some pain killers before I got in the bath, so I'm feeling better and kind of sleepy. I was going to try and wait up for Rory, but I don't know if I can now," Lorelai said.

"I can wait for her," Luke offered. "I don't have to open tomorrow, so I can stay up."

"Don't be ridiculous," Emily cut in, and she pointedly ignored the sigh of exasperation from Lorelai. "I'll stay to wait for Rory, and Luke can go home."

"Really, Mrs. Gilmore, it's not a problem. Besides, this way you don't have to drive back to Hartford in the middle of the night," Luke said. It was a long shot, but if he didn't try, he'd probably regret it.

"That is an excellent point, Luke," Lorelai said. "Mom, it's getting late and the roads are probably getting icy. It'll be safer for you to go home now."

"This is all for my own good, hm?" Emily said, arching a brow. "I will stay until Rory gets home, and then ask her how the roads were."

Lorelai's smile tightened. "Well, that's your choice then," she said before shuffling off to her bedroom.

Emily turned her attention to Luke, who looked pensive. "So, are you really going to stay here until Rory comes home?"

"Yeah, I think I will," he answered. He sat down on the couch and turned the TV on, channel surfing until he found a football bowl game that was being played on the west coast and thus was still early in the game.

With an eye roll, Emily grabbed a magazine and settled herself in a chair away from the TV to read.

* * *

Luke didn't know when he fell asleep. At half time he had taken his shoes off and stretched out, noting that it was likely that Rory wouldn't be home until the game was done. When the game was finished and the post-game wrapped, he flipped around until he found _McLintock!_ on one of the movie channels. It was likely he crashed in the middle of the film, but he wasn't certain.

What he did know was that dawn was breaking and Emily Gilmore was awake and in a panic. He watched the older woman fly up the stairs, calling or Lorelai. "She's not here, Lorelai, Rory's not here!"

Icy dread pooled in Luke's stomach. How could Rory have not come home? He immediately pulled his shoes on and headed for the door. By walking to Lorelai's from the diner he didn't have the truck nearby, but it wouldn't take him long to get to it. He'd drive the highway between Hartford and Stars Hollow and hoped that Rory and Dean were only stranded, and not injured, alongside the road.

Relief hit him like a brick to the chest when he reached the square and saw Rory dashing across it, Dean hot on her heels.

"Look, please, please let me come with you!" Dean called after her.

"No!" she cried.

"Rory-"

She turned to the boy, and shook her head. "I have to go home."

Darting across the street, she ran blindly forward until Luke put himself in her path. "Whoa, Rory, hey," he said, grabbing her.

"Luke!" she gasped, looking up at him. She looked terrified, and given the fresh hell that Emily Gilmore was raising at Lorelai's place, she had every right to be. "What are you…did Mom ask you to…"

"No," he said, shrugging out of his flannel. Thankfully he dressed in layers and he still had his long sleeved Henley underneath. He put the shirt around Rory's bare shoulders and held her for a moment. "I went over to check on her last night since I hadn't seen her in a few days. I got her into bed and then volunteered to wait for you."

"You didn't have to-"

"Yes, I did," he said as he started walking back to Lorelai's house, Rory trotting alongside him. "Your grandmother insisted on staying, by the way."

"Oh no, Grandma," Rory groaned. "Is she mad?"

"She sounded worried more than anything else," Luke answered, recalling the elder Gilmore's tone as she raced up the stairs to Lorelai's room. "I don't know how your mom is; I didn't talk to her before I left."

"Why did you leave?"

"Because I had this awful vision of you lying injured alongside the road," he answered. "Not a great feeling to wake up to, by the way."

"I'm so sorry," Rory said. "We left the dance early because my classmates are jerks and one of them tried to pick a fight with Dean. We wandered around the square a bit because it was so pretty with the snow and the lights and that's when I noticed that the door to Miss Patty's studio was slightly ajar so we went in and I was telling Dean stories about Miss Patty's career and then we sat down and started reading a book and then we fell asleep and…"

"And then you woke up and realized what time it was?"

"Not exactly," Rory said. "Miss Patty came in with her morning yoga class and they woke us up. I swear Luke, nothing happened."

He sighed and ran his hand over his head, belatedly noting that in his haste to find Rory he hadn't put his hat on. "I'm not the one you need to explain yourself to," he said.

They had reached Lorelai's house by that point and Rory quietly let herself in the front door, Luke following behind her. Emily's voice carried from the kitchen, and Rory pulled Luke into the living room, out of sight from any of the doorways.

"Oh you're so perfect and I was so horrible. I put you in good schools. I gave you the best of everything. I made sure you had the finest opportunities. And I am so tired of hearing about how you were suffocated and I was so controlling. Well if I was so controlling why couldn't I control you running around getting pregnant and throwing your life away."

"Get out!" Lorelai bellowed.

"What?"

"You will not come into my house and tell me I threw my life away. Look around, Mom. This is a life. It has a little color in it so it may look a little unfamiliar to you, but it's a life. And if I hadn't gotten pregnant I wouldn't have Rory."

"You know that's not what I meant."

"Maybe I was some horrible, uncontrollable child like you say, but Rory isn't. She's smart and careful and I trust her and she's gonna be fine and if you can't accept that or believe it, then I don't want you in this house!"

With a huff, Emily exited the kitchen and strode out the front door, slamming it behind her. Rory looked at Luke and then gave small smile, before creeping towards the kitchen.

"Mom, thank you for saying all those –"

Lorelai rounded on her daughter, all of her fear and anger rushing out. "What were you thinking? Staying out all night! Are you insane?"

"I'm sorry. It was an accident," Rory said.

"You're talking to the queen of staying out all night. I invented the concept! This is no accident! You can't do this! Period."

"Nothing happened!"

"Do you have any idea what it's like to wake up with my mother here and find out that you never came home?" Lorelai demanded. The knots in her stomach still weren't gone, though they had eased some when Patty called to say that Rory was on her way home.

"So all this is about Grandma being here."

"No, it's about the feeling of complete terror when your kid isn't in her bed in the morning."

Recalling Luke's earlier admission, Rory blinked back tears. "I'm sorry."

"And then it's about a whole different kind of terror when you find out that she spent the night with some guy."

"I didn't spend the night with him. We fell asleep."

"You are going on the pill."

"What?"

"You're not getting pregnant."

"I'm not sleeping with Dean."

"Dammit!"

"What happened to all that stuff you said to Grandma? What happened to trusting me? Where did all that go?"

"I think it's back on Patty's yoga mats."

"This is crap! You know I didn't do anything. You know this is an accident. You're just mad because I screwed up and I did it in front of Grandma and she nailed you for it. Well I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I screwed up and I'm sorry that you got yelled at, but I didn't do anything and you know it!" Rory dashed into the sanctuary of her bedroom.

The door slammed behind Rory, and Luke waited a few moments before walking into the kitchen to find Lorelai sitting at the table and crying. He stood behind her and massaged her shoulders, allowing her to collect her thoughts. Finally she tilted her head back to look at him. "Hey, you're still here." She blinked at him, before standing and looking him over. "And you're not wearing your flannel or your hat."

"Rory was wearing the flannel, though I can understand if you didn't notice, and I didn't put the hat on when I went out to look for her," he said.

"You went out to look for her?" Lorelai asked, her voice wavering.

"Well yeah. I woke up when your mom started yelling that Rory wasn't home, and I had a slight freak out because I should have noticed that she wasn't home hours ago but I must have fallen asleep while waiting for her to get back," he said, leading Lorelai towards the living room. He sat down and pulled her down with him, settling her against his side. "I was walking back to the diner to get my truck when she almost ran me down in the square."

"Then you walked her home?"

"I did. She really is sorry, Lorelai," Luke said. "I don't think anything happened between them. They certainly weren't acting like anything had happened between them."

"I know nothing happened, this is Rory we're talking about," Lorelai said, "but it's still terrifying to wake up to find that your kid is not in her bed and know that she was out with some guy all night."

"I get it," Luke said, "I do because God knows I about had a heart attack myself when I woke up to your mother yelling that Rory hadn't come home."

"Ugh, you're so good to us," Lorelai moaned. "We don't deserve it."

Resisting the urge to press a kiss to the crown of her head, he pressed his cheek against her hair. "Sure you do."

"God, it's not even seven AM and I'm already exhausted from today," Lorelai groaned. "Pretty much the only bright spot is that my back is no longer in excruciating pain, merely stiff."

"Tell you what, I'm gonna run back to the diner and get the stuff to make breakfast. I'm not expecting you and Rory to sit down at eat at the table, but I think after the morning you both had, you need something more substantial than Pop Tarts."

"No, Luke, you've already done so much," Lorelai protested.

"I'm doing it anyway, Lorelai. Just…sit back and take it easy and I'll be back in no time," he said.

She nodded morosely before repositioning herself on the couch so he could stand. Luke's presence had been comforting, far calmer than her mother. Good old Luke, she thought. Leave it to him to find some sort of silver lining in this whole fiasco.

Lorelai sat in silence for a few minutes after Luke left before turning the TV on. There wasn't much on this early on a Sunday morning, so she settled for a cooking show on PBS. The irony wasn't lost on her, the adoration she and Rory had for cooking shows and their complete inability to actually cook anything was probably legendary. Still, with Luke around they were fed, and when he couldn't feed them, Sookie took care of them.

Ten minutes later Luke strode through the door and made his way to the kitchen, a bag in each arm loaded down with supplies for waffles, including a waffle iron. Lorelai wandered in after him, sitting down at the table and watching him move around her kitchen. He looked like he belonged there, making breakfast for the three of them.

"Something wrong?" he asked as he started whisking the batter together.

"Hm? No, sorry," Lorelai said. "I was just thinking, you look good in here."

At this rather odd pronouncement, he turned to look at her with a confused frown. "What?"

"Ah, well, you look good in here. Natural. Like you belong."

His mouth opened and shut a few times before he finally snapped it shut and went back to cooking. Sometimes it was easier to just let those weird statements go when it came to Lorelai.

"Yeah, it sounds weird doesn't it?" she asked.

"It's fine, Lorelai," he said.

"So today is a waffle kind of day?"

"I even brought the whipped cream. I don't have any strawberries though."

"Man, things must seem really bad to you if you brought the whipped cream."

"Yeah, well," he said with a shrug.

"Thank you, Luke," she said. "I really appreciate it."

"Don't worry about it," he said, and Lorelai swore she saw his ears turn pink. "What else are friends for?"

With that out in the universe, Lorelai let the kitchen fall into silence save the sounds of Luke cooking. Even though she was technically dating Max, Lorelai couldn't help but wonder what it would be like if it were Luke. Max in the house had been a little awkward, but with Luke it was the most natural thing in the world. A vision popped into her head of Luke making breakfast while a couple of kids raced in and out the kitchen as they waited.

Shaking the stray thought from her head, Lorelai instead focused on one of her best friends. It was easier, less complicated, if that barrier existed between them. No point in getting her hopes up about something that would never come to be.


End file.
